Bringing the Railway to Daming

The next day.

Zhu Zhen returned to Chulai Port and opened several oil-paper packages sent to him by Zhu Gui.

Seeing the various strange costumes inside and reading the letters Zhu Gui wrote to him, he couldn't help shaking his head and laughing.

"This old man, even though he's established his own vassal state overseas, is still so out of touch."

However, when Zhu Zhen looked at the clothes carefully, and even tried on a few of them himself, and then thought about the clothes worn by later generations in the videos and movies he had seen, his ideas changed a little.

"The weather in Nanyang is hot. If I keep wearing the clothes from the Ming Dynasty, it will be hot. Maybe I can change the style of Lao Qi's clothes a little bit before wearing them."

"Next year, when the weather is hottest, find someone to try it out and see how the military and civilians react."

After ordering his men to store all the strange clothes Zhu Gui had sent him, Zhu Zhen began to look at maps in his cabin study.

The map he was looking at included the South Pacific Islands, the Indochina Peninsula and even the northern part of the Australian continent.

Although he chose to establish a vassal state in the southeast of Borneo (China's ancient name for Sulimantan Island), he did not plan to expand northward - after taking over the two small countries of Tansongpuri and Naghadah, he would focus on farming and training troops.

Build a navy and organize more land forces to prepare for cooperating with the court to attack and destroy the Majapahit Kingdom a few years later.

Speaking of which, Majapahit, as the largest kingdom in Southeast Asia today, was even called an empire in the later history described by Liu Kuan. It was actually quite powerful.

The Majapahit Kingdom rose to prominence a hundred years ago. At that time, Srivijaya was the first kingdom in Southeast Asia, and in addition to Sumatra, it also occupied the western part of Java Island.

Today, the Majapahit Kingdom not only occupies the entire Java Island and many surrounding islands, but also occupies Bali Island and most of the later Nusa Tenggara Islands to the east.

Only the easternmost island of Timor and its surrounding islands were still under the rule of a kingdom called "Dili". However, Dili also believed in Brahmanism and had Majapahit as its overlord.

To the west, the Majapahit Kingdom attacked the island of Sumatra and occupied more than a dozen cities and large tracts of land south of the old port (Palembang).

Old Port was the capital of Srivijaya more than two hundred years ago. Later, as the country developed northward, the capital was moved to Jambi.

However, during the period when Srivijaya was at its most powerful, Jambi and Old Port were actually regarded as royal cities, just like Beijing and Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty in history.

Now Majapahit's troops are only about a hundred miles away from Jiugang, which shows how dangerous the situation in Srivijaya is.

Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty's opening of the sea, Zhu Yuanzhang had placed spies in Srivijaya and Majapahit, so he was very familiar with the current military strength of the two countries.

The Majapahit Kingdom now not only has a vast territory, but also has several vassal states. There are about 8,000 warships in the country. Although most of them are warships of several hundred tons, there are also large ships of more than 1,000 tons or even more than 2,000 tons.

In addition, there were 80,000 royal guards (professional troops directly under the royal court) in the country, and more than 300,000 part-time local troops.

The most important thing is that the Majapahit Kingdom is now in its heyday.

Therefore, even if Zhu Zhen's Chu vassal had firearms such as cannons and bird guns, it would be difficult for it to conquer the Majapahit Kingdom alone - after all, he only had more than 10,000 troops at most and only tens of thousands of civilians.

Therefore, we have to cooperate with the court's actions.

However, the imperial court still wanted to "let go" of Majapahit for a few more years, hoping that Majapahit would destroy Srivijaya, or force Srivijaya to submit to the Ming Dynasty, and then send troops in the name of "responding to the request of the Srivijaya royal family."

Zhu Zhen's original idea when he came to Southeast Asia to establish a vassal state was to occupy the southern part of Sumatra Island south of Jambi, the southern part of Borneo (Surimantan Island), the Java Islands, the Lesser Sunda Islands, and Timor Island, making the Java Sea an inland sea of ​​the Chu State.

Unfortunately, after he told Zhu Yuanzhang about this idea, he did not get Zhu Yuanzhang's approval.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not restrict his vassal state to a radius of 5,000 miles by sea, but only allowed him to enclose land in the Java Islands, the Lesser Sunda Islands, and Timor Island.

Regarding Sumatra Island, Zhu Yuanzhang said that there would be other arrangements in the future.

But Zhu Zhen really wanted to turn the Java Sea into an inland sea of ​​Chu.

"My father wouldn't allow it, but after he passed away, and even after my elder brother and Xiong Ying passed away, the imperial court's control over Southeast Asia weakened, and my Great Chu might not have no chance of occupying Sumatra."

"However, in my generation, and even in the next two generations of the Great Chu monarchs, I'm afraid we can only develop southward."

"It would also be a good idea to expand the borders of Chu to the northern part of the Australian continent."

Zhu Zhen's gaze passed over the Savu Sea and the Timor Sea on the map and fell on the Australian continent, his mind full of thoughts.

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In the winter months, the capital of the Ming Dynasty had already become quite cold. That afternoon, after Liu Kuan resigned from his post, he accepted Zhu Biao's invitation to a banquet at Chunhe Palace.

Besides him, those who attended the banquet included Prince Yong Zhu Chong and Prince Lu Zhu Tan.

However, the two of them wanted to borrow Zhu Biao's place to ask Liu Kuan for advice on establishing a vassal state overseas.

The banquet began. After some greetings and some food to fill their stomachs, Zhu Chong was the first to lose patience and brought the topic to the issue of establishing vassal states overseas.

"Brother-in-law, I'm not afraid of you laughing at me. Although I've decided to establish a fiefdom in South America, I don't know much about overseas affairs, so I haven't decided on a specific place in South America yet."

"You are the one who knows the most about that place in Ming Dynasty. You must give me some pointers."

Liu Kuan actually didn't like Zhu Chong, even though he seemed to have reformed now.

But now that Zhu Chong came to ask for advice through Zhu Biao, he had to give some advice.

After thinking for a while, Liu Kuan said, "Your Highness Prince Yong, South America is actually not a good place to establish a vassal state."

Zhu Chong frowned, "Why do you say that?"

Liu Kuan: "Firstly, South America is too far away from the Ming Dynasty. After establishing the vassal state, it will be very difficult to immigrate there or obtain the materials that are unique to the Ming Dynasty."

"Secondly, the Inca Empire still exists in South America. And according to some information I later obtained, the Inca Empire has been established for over a hundred years now, and its national power is on the rise, likely with a population of millions."

"Third, the territory of the Inca Empire was roughly the western coastal and mountainous areas of central South America, which was also the area suitable for survival in western South America."

"If His Royal Highness Prince Yong were to go to South America, he would easily come into conflict with the Inca Empire. Even if our weapons were more advanced than theirs, with such a huge disparity in numbers, we would easily be surrounded by the Incas."

Zhu Chong was speechless after hearing this. He couldn't help but glare and said, "Brother-in-law, why didn't you tell me all this earlier?"

"Ahem," Zhu Biao coughed immediately and said, "Second brother, my brother-in-law didn't know you would choose South America to establish a vassal state—who would have thought that someone would choose such a faraway place?"

Zhu Chong frowned and said, "But now, not only have I already made an agreement with my father, but the preparations for establishing a vassal state over the past six months have also been focused on South America. I can't just switch to another place, can I?"

Zhu Biao was the eldest brother after all, so seeing this, he asked on Zhu Chong's behalf, "Brother-in-law, what suggestions do you have for this?"

Liu Kuan said, "I think that whether His Royal Highness Prince Yong chooses North America or Australia to establish a vassal state, it would be better than going to South America."

Zhu Chong said, "The imperial court has established so many garrisons along the west coast of North America. Where else can we find a suitable place to start establishing a vassal state?"

"As for Australia, it's far away, and it's a barren land. The natives are uncivilized. I'm not going there."

After hearing this, Liu Kuan thought to himself: Zhu Chong said that he doesn’t know much about overseas affairs. Isn’t that a lot?

Then he said, "The west coast of North America is long. There must be a suitable starting point for establishing a vassal state, right? For example, between the North American and Central American Dusi, which is right here."

As Liu Kuan spoke, he walked to the map placed in the hall and pointed to the west coast of northern Mexico in the future.

Zhu Chong also came over and looked at the map with suspicion, saying, "Is this place really suitable for development?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Generally speaking, it's definitely better than those places on the west coast of South America."

In Liu Kuan's view, the first thing to consider when deciding to become a vassal is the distance from the Ming Dynasty, followed by whether the local area is suitable for farming and supporting the people, then whether there are indigenous people worth absorbing, and finally other aspects.

So, in his opinion, the northern west coast of Mexico is a good place.

In the future, it can be developed towards the interior of North America, and the potential is also great.

Who knew that just as he finished speaking, Zhu Tan said, "Second brother, this place is located between the two major capitals of the imperial court. I'm afraid its future development will be restricted."

"South America is a bit far, and there's the Inca Empire—but no matter how large the population of the Inca Empire is, how can it be a match for my second brother? In my opinion, the population of the Inca Empire was prepared for my second brother."

"Also, second brother, you probably didn't know that the teacher showed us a video about America earlier. There are many silver and gold mines in the mountains along the west coast of South America, and there's even the world's largest silver mine."

"If my second brother goes there to establish a vassal state, he only needs to gradually disintegrate and destroy the Inca Empire. In the future, the Yong vassal state will be like sitting on a mountain of gold and silver, and will not have to worry about running out of money for hundreds of years."

"It's such a great place, are you really going to give it up just because of a little difficulty?" (End of this chapter)